26 replies so far

Who knows what Black and Decker has going on, I doubt that they are going bust when they just came out with a new Unisaw. Not that I’m impressed with that decision, I mean really, ever hear anyone complain about one of the handwheels on the side of the cabinet ? I think that was more of a management request then it was a consumer request.

According to my local Lowe’s, they are slowly phasing out all their Delta tools. And then Delta is phasing out all of their mid range tools, they will only be carrying high end tools, and then very low end tools. I asked about accessories and parts for the tools I already have and was told that they will still make all parts for anything they have made in the past.

Again, this is what I was told by Lowe’s, which may or may not mean squat.

I wouldn’t take much stake in what a employee at Lowes, Home Depot, Menards or any other hardware outfit has to say. They don’t pay them enough to know anything other then how to tolerate some of the public.

Can’t imagine how, since B&D doesn’t have any brandname under their flag which specialize in light machinery. But even if that happens Delta might be alright for spare parts, since that is tied in with Dewalt/PC system, so you can still request for parts unlike other companies which completely disappears. Although I don’t think companies usually make parts for discontinued machinery, they only sell what spare part stock they have. They estimate the failure rate of products and make all spare parts along with production runs. It would be too costly to make parts upon request, unless they are very dedicated

Light machinery? Well, we used to have a Porter-Cable service center in Tampa. Awesome place for a distributor like myself to pull product from, send warranties to…you know, customer service.

They (B&D) closed that store in their infinite bean counter wisdom some 4 years ago. Then, they had the service center moved to a B&D center in Clearwater, Fl. Why do I tell you this? The B&D “light machinery” part…when walking in to that “B&D service center, their claim to fame was an orange cordless lawn mower that they were so proud to display smack dab in the center of that showroom. Next to it sat a Porter-Cable 7519 3 1/4 HP touter….light machinery? Yeah, they have it.

I was responding to Reds comment. I knew what B&D bought. But actually they never bought DeWalt, DeWalt has allways been B&D’s industrial line. If it wasn’t for DeWalt, they probably couldn’t have bought out the others.

Consumers are to blame for the bulk of the reminiscing, gripes about quality that we have today. Things where moved to China when it was discovered that people where buying all the junk that came out of china ant it was killing their ability to compete. All those POS 14” bandsaws (like JET) used Rockwell castings to create molds to make the knock offs and peope bought them as fast as they can. Now they lament the lack of good quality tools.

Dewalt was Dewalt (under their own owndership) untill AMT bought them around 1950, then 10 years later B&D bought them.

B&D has owned Dewalt for almost 50 years now (next year), many of the giant 16” 3phase saws you drool over at the lumber yard where produced under their ownership.

Delta isn’t going bust, Pentair drove it into the ground and cut quality/cost as fast as they could the last few years that they owned PC and Delta, B&D is trying to find a profitable area of business to focus on.

One of the old tools guys that owns Unisaw serial A-100(oldest known Unisaw in operation from the 1st year of production) was invited to the factory to see the new Unisaw and HE says its a great saw. That’s more than enough for me. The Unisaw has been a joke for the last 15 years,

I’m happy to see them reinventing it and renewing their commitment not just to a name/shape but to an industrial quality saw.

Its a sad state of affairs when Milwaulkee Electric Tools is owned by a Hong Kong based company, and there are only 2 Tablesaws produced in the US and only 1 of those is a 10” someone may use in a non production shop setting.

I guess I didn’t know that about Dewalt. I have some AMT equipment that I bought before they went under, and a little old 8” table saw that I stumbled upon somewhere. I’m not sure if thats the same AMT your talking about. Time will tell on the new Unisaw, if I remember correctly it will be made in the USA, can’t complain about that. When you say that the Unisaw has been a joke for the last 15 years, do you mean that because it was imported ? I talked to a gal at Delta just a couple years ago about the Unisaws, and she told me the X5 series were made in the USA.